Samuel Bodger | gunner RGA
A letter from Portland in 1915 about a cake.
A letter from the trenches with a flower and butterfly enclosed.
Three embroidered or embellished souvenir cards
Photograph of Samuel Bodger's father, also Samuel Edmund Bodger, on horseback.
Samuel Edmund Bodger, gunner RGA, trained at Portland when he enlisted for the War.
His wartime correspondence with his family contains remarkable items from the landscape of the trenches. In his letter written from the trenches the day before the Spring Offensive, March 20th, 1918, he encloses a dried leaf (violet) and a butterfly. These were subsequently kept in the family bible.
The letter complains about a girl's failure to write to him and mentions picking flowers in the trenches.
Samuel's embroidered souvenirs were kept by the contributor's (his niece) parents, on the mantelpiece in their bedroom.
Samuel's father, also called Samuel Edmund Bodger, enlisted when in his 40s, but survived the war into the 1960s. He was a member of the Devonshire Yeomanry.
Samuel Bodger's correspondence
Butterfly and Violet enclosed in a letter from the Western Front before the Spring Offensive
Butterfly and Violet enclosed in a letter from the Western Front
Letter
Western Front
Embroidered Card
Samuel Bodger's Embroidered Card
Postcard
Photograph
Samuel Bodger's father, Devonshire Yeomanry
CONTRIBUTOR
Hazel Mills
DATE
- 1918
LANGUAGE
eng
ITEMS
18
INSTITUTION
Europeana 1914-1918
PROGRESS
METADATA
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Photograph of Leonard Kirk in uniform || My grandfather Leonard Kirk was born in Leeds as one of nine sons, of whom two died in Flanders. Leonard himself died from pneumonia on his way home to his family in May 1919. His brother Joe did make it home but was badly wounded and shell shocked and never worked again. When the First World War broke out, Leonard was visiting England from Chicago with his wife Ethel (they had emigrated in 1910) awaiting the birth of their second child, my father George. Leonard wanted to do his bit and joined up. He went through the war uninjured, but then died on 4th May 1919 at the age of 38. He died in Italy and is buried at Faenza. Leonard was a gunner with 20th Small Arms Ammunition Column Royal Field Artillery. Because Leonard did not die in action or from wounds, Ethel was not classed as a war widow and therefore received a widow's pension of £2.4s.9d. Leonard was the son of Samuel and Alice Mary Kirk of Bramley, Leeds.